Rack a Gun on the Bad Guy? Really?

At 2:00 in to the video above, defensive tactics instructor Richard Nance proves that he’s a better man than I, Gunga Din. OK, you probably knew that already. But I reckon that using the bad guy’s body to tap – rack your firearm (before shooting him) elevates an armed self-defender from an operator to a Bourne-again superhero. Still, how many of us have practiced bringing our gun to bear on the bad guy when we’ve been knocked ass over teakettle? How likely is that to happen in a violent assault? Well exactly.

Why in the world would you let someone mount you if you already have the gun in your hand? Trigger pull. Repeat until threat stops trying to mount you.

I get the concept of being prepared with your combatives (especially if you are a cop) but it’s hard to imagine a scenario where you have the gun in your hand, go down, and then not respond to the threat trying to mount you. The only ones I can think of already have you at a severe disadvantage (Multiple attackers, getting knocked out, etc.)

That being said, I’d love to see this actually put into practice at real speed with an actual (unloaded and safe) gun. It’s one thing to say rack your slide on the bad gun using a dummy gun in slow mo, and a whole other thing to do it in real time with the bad guy fighting back.

This guy is absolutely stupid if he actually thinks this will work. Assailants don’t just sit there and let you work your one-step technique. When you raise the gun up, assuming you aren’t overpowered, the bad guy is going to ride up on your torso and beat your face in. If you do the shoulder push he isn’t going to just hang out there, he’s going to sit up and turn back into you.

Let’s see Nance do that racking trick with a real gun (unloaded, of course). I suspect that in 9 out of 10 tries he won’t manage to get the slide as far back as it needs to go. I, personally, carry a semi-auto cocked, with one round in the chamber and the safety on. In an exigent situation, all I would need to do is flick the safety off and pull the trigger.

Its a good idea for people that carry to learn a martial art: boxing, brazillian Jiu jitsu, actual kick boxing(not that weak ass Ti Bo shit). Keeps you in shape and helps to defend against a-holes if you cant get to a gun.

Assuming an unarmed threat would try to control your gun, hands, wrists, forearms etc. I would think Aikido or traditional Jujutsu. would also be a great compliment to firearms use being that they are designed to involve weapon retention.

I believe martial arts training is much more likely to be valuable when you and an attacker are both still on your feet and the attacker is only a few inches away … especially if they have a weapon in hand already. When an attacker is that close, there is no way that you can draw a concealed handgun and shoot faster than they can strike. Even worse, they stand a very good chance of blocking your draw as well as your ability to put rounds on them. Finally, the worst case of all, the attacker may actually be able to try and take your handgun away as you are in the process of drawing and aiming.

In that situation I believe the best and only first move for you to make is to strike the attacker with your fist, arm (block), or feet (kick). That first strike serves three purposes: it weakens the attacker (possibly breaking their arm, leg, ribs, etc.), it may very well stun the attacker (buying you one or two seconds of time), and most importantly it will likely help create distance between you and the attacker — distance that you need to draw and put shots on the attacker.

The hard part is real training. Real training requires real (hard) strikes which could injure the training partner playing the role of the attacker. I have not figured out how to do that.

I have actually seen this work multiple times and done it myself in force on force training. I spent two days with Craig Douglas (Southnarc) in Extreme Close Quarters Concepts going full speed with guys with Glock Simunitions guns. In an entangled fight the odds of a malfunction are very high. You will need to know how to do this. I saw guys racking the slide off of their opponents ribs, legs, back, arms and even face (with a helmet). Also as others have said you should get training beyond the gun, you need to actually be able to fight without the gun. One more thing, get yourself in shape.

This is pretty much why I carry a gun (or two) and a tactical folder: My Jujitsu is weak and most of me already hurts. I’m not saying it can’t happen to me, but my ground game from the bottom is pretty much going to center on trying to angle some hits on my attacker even if I have to absorb some damage in the process. Also, I’d never pack a pistol without a round in the chamber. Does anyone else train for drawing their knife weak hand while holding their pistol strong hand? I do, see again how weak my Jujitsu is. What I do have are multiple deadly weapons stored in various locations on my person. The BG has me like an octopus if I can’t cut or shoot him while he mounts me.

That said I have some practice with fighting for control of my gun while mounted on the ground. Not black belt gun kata but enough to have some ideas for how to handled it. Racking the gun on the BG though seems a little over the top for training. The time would be better spent developing a guard. . . or really just on anything more practical and likely to be of use than a loaded but out of battery pistol drill using the BG to correct it.